NLPhilia Blog

Tom Vizzini says he and Kim McFarland are headed for the UK this summer:

• The Anchoring and Rapport Boot Camp will be July 18-20
• The 3D Mind Practitioner will be July 27 and 27

Signing up quickly will save you a lot of money and assure your spot in the training!

Some of you may remember Michal Wallace. I lost track of him a long time ago and sort of accidentally found him recently. He has a blog called “without an e” and it’s very cool. Mostly about programming, it also approaches non-computer-programming problems from a programmer’s perspective.

Here’s a recent example: “Refactoring GTD (Getting Things Done) for Email”. He uses Python code to illustrate two ways of thinking about what he’s doing. (If you’re unfamiliar with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” productivity philosophy/practice, see Mr. Allen’s Web page.)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: one of the best things I have ever done for myself was to learn the basics of computer programming, and I recommend it to anyone. Michal’s example above is one reason why.

EDIT 2022-05-16: Michal no longer maintains the above-mentioned blog and I haven’t yet found the python code I referred to in this article. His new blog is here, and it’s currently a list of ways to find him elsewhere.

Remember the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? Bandler and Grinder wrote about it in The Structure of Magic. I don’t recall if they mentioned it by name, though. The basic idea is that our language shapes our perceptions. I’ve been told that it’s been Soundly Disproven By Science.

And then along comes this article, titled “Babies See Pure Color, but Adults Peer Through Prism of Language“, in Wired Science:

When infant eyes absorb a world of virgin visions, colors are processed purely, in a pre-linguistic parts of the brain. As adults, colors are processed in the brain’s language centers, refracted by the concepts we have for them.

Thanks for the pointer, Boingboing.

The Freakonomics Blog points to a recent article (Net Gains for Mental Health) in the London Times:

Type “online counsellor” into any internet search engine and hundreds of thousands of results will appear: with a click of the mouse, and a glance at a screen, you, too, can be cured of your depression, phobias and eating disorders, go the claims. Unbelieveable? Perhaps not. A growing body of research has found that when – and this is crucial – it is carried out responsibly, and kept specific, online therapy is one of the most effective ways of dealing with the rising levels of mental ill-health.

Some of us have been doing this sort of thing for a while. I’ve coached people via e-mail, Instant Messaging, and phone. I’m always careful to test — even more often than while face-to-face — and I’m far more likely to be explicit and overt. I can’t say I like doing it as much as face-to-face, but it can work.

I wouldn’t want an inexperienced or poorly-trained person doing it, though.

What do you think?

If people aren’t taking you seriously, maybe it’s because of the way you’re communicating with them. Liz Strauss over at Successful Blog writes about the disconnect between a recent client’s goals and some of their marketing materials:

What do you do when you have big goals and you realize that your customer base sees you as a small-time operation? It’s time to realign your value proposition and how you offer your services to them.

Go read Does Your Value Proposition Say that You’re Small Time?

(I love the way she creates headlines. )

On the Lifehacker blog recently is an article on how to encode numbers into words so you can remember them more easily. (Read the comments, though, as most of the good information is in those.)

The jist of it is that each digit is given one or more consonant sounds, and vowels are free. So 491,744,962 ends up being “rabid carrier pigeon”, for example.

If you’re looking for a challenge, here’s pi to one million decimal places and phi to 20,000 places.

Read more at Lifehacker: Memorize Long Numbers Using the “Red Table”

By way of Lifehacker I found a really cool article on how to exercise your mind:

You can find strong powers of concentration in yourself. When you are decisive and sincerely want to excel in your studies, pass an important exam, or playing one of your favorite games; the power of concentration becomes available to you. This kind of concentration is raised because of some need, or desire. Increasing it in a systematic way, brings it under your control, and grants you the ability to use it easily, with no exertion whenever you need it. Real and good concentration is developed slowly, through daily work, and with special exercises. It has to be approached in a reasonable and practical way.

Read more at the EgoDevelopment blog, and see also my recent reference to a great DVD on the subject.

Andy Smith’s Practical EQ blog points to an interesting article in The Guardian:

Focusing on depression in a purely clinical way is preventing us understanding our susceptibility to it and ignores the good it can bring, argues psychiatrist Paul Keedwell

This goes pretty well with one of my own beliefs about pain.

Marketing master Seth Godin seems to be thinking about Metaprograms lately.

In an article on marketing in a recession, he writes about how metaprograms change with the context and how to respond to them:

Starbucks was the indulgence of a confident person happy to blow $4 on a cup of coffee. Starbucks can become the small indulgence for the person who just traded down to a small rented apartment.

And in a more recent one about persuasion in general, he clearly outlines the importance of them:

Here’s the thing: unlike every other species, human beings make decisions differently from one another. And the thing that persuades you is unlikely to be the thing that persuades the next guy. Our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else.

I love reading Seth’s work. He’s amazing.

I happened to catch the last half of this broadcast last night, and it was excellent:

The Brain Fitness Program is based on the brains ability to change and adapt, even rewire itself. In the past two years, a team of scientists has developed computer-based stimulus sets that drive beneficial chemical, physical and functional changes in the brain. Dr. Michael Merzenich of the University of California and his colleagues share their scientifically based set of brain exercises in this life-altering program. Peter Coyote narrates.

Buy The Brain Fitness Program DVD, learn how to keep your brain young and strong, and support public television to boot!